Boorse and His Critics

The previous chapter explained the details of Boorse’s naturalistic concept of health. Briefly, Boorse thinks health is an ideal dispositional-functional state of parts of organisms of a particular species, gender, and age group. Importantly, he maintains that this account is value-free and complements the theoretical framework embraced by medical pathologists. Boorse’s analysis has come under attack by critics from many different directions. For example, some argue that his account includes faulty reasoning, is not in fact objective and value-free, neglects to consider seriously environment factors of biological systems, and is at odds with the practice of medicine. Boorse, however, thinks that his reply to his critics reveals that his naturalistic concept of health “best explains medical disease judgments and our reactions to them.” ¹ This chapter will determine the extent to which Boorse is successful in this claim.